


Words Unspoken

by Lindira



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trespasser DLC spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4928788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindira/pseuds/Lindira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: "When the words appeared, Dorian found comfort in them. They were a promise, that there would be someone out there for him. Dorian would meet that someone, someday, who would love him and whom he would love in return. The words even said so: <em>I love you, ma'nehn. I'm sorry</em>."</p><p>Soulmates, and their last words written on each other's skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> AU based on the following prompt by aceofultron on Tumblr: "soulmate au where instead of your soulmates first words to you written on your skin it’s their last words you ever hear them say so you don’t know who your soulmate is until you lose them"
> 
> This work briefly references and/or mirrors scenes from "Diverged in a Yellow Wood", "Sound of the Unlocking", and "The Lift Away", though it isn't necessary to have read them to understand what's going on in this story.
> 
> WARNING: Trespasser DLC spoilers within.

When the words appeared, Dorian found comfort in them. They were a promise, that there would be someone out there for him. Dorian would meet that someone, someday, who would love him and whom he would love in return. The words even said so _: I love you, ma'nehn. I’m sorry._ The black script flowed across the inside of his left forearm, looking like an intricate tattoo.

Such a simple thing to say, for final words. When Dorian’s classmates began to receive theirs, they compared them, making up stories for why their soulmates said those things as their last words to each other. Dorian didn’t join in. They weren’t his friends, and he figured his words were boring anyway.

Except that middle word. What was it? It wasn’t in Common Tongue or Tevene. His father had made him learn some Orlesian, and it didn’t look like it belonged to that language either. What did it mean?

At first he showed it to people, to tutors and servants and family retainers, all of whom didn’t know any better than he did what it meant. Some of them couldn’t even read. He showed it to Mother once. She glanced at it and waved him away, telling him to leave her alone to her work.

After a time, Dorian stopped asking. The more he thought about it, the more he obsessed over it, needing to know more than anything what the word meant. Finally, for his sanity’s sake, he took to covering the words with a long glove or a sleeve so he wouldn’t see it so often. It felt like a secret, kept between himself and the soulmate he longed to meet one day. Whoever they were.

***

As Dorian grew older, the words felt like a joke. When it became clear to him who he was, he quickly realized that the people he was capable of loving would never permit themselves to show him affection in return. And the people he was allowed to love were the ones  _he_  was incapable of loving. He could never have more with the men he bedded.

There were some who laughed at the idea of a soulmate, a single person who was meant for you. Dorian tried to be one of them. He scoffed when Felix insisted that he’d find that person someday, that he’d find someone who would make him happy. Dorian accused him of being jealous. Felix didn’t have words.

“Perhaps a little,” Felix admitted. “But I’ve come to terms with the fact that there isn’t someone out there for me. Not in that way, anyway.” He shrugged. “You, however, do have words. Shouldn’t you be happy that you have someone?”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Let us not romanticize this, Felix. The words are nonsense. Happiness cannot be contained within a single person. It’s impossible.” He crossed his arms, purposefully tucking his left arm under his right where he couldn’t be tempted to lift his sleeve and look at the words. “It’s probably just some spell gone wrong by some power-mad magister to make fools of the starry-eyed romantics in the world.”

“Funny,” Felix said with a sigh. “I always thought of you as a starry-eyed romantic.”

“Ha, there are no romantics in Tevinter,” Dorian replied with a mirthless bark of a laugh. “I thought you knew that.” He sighed. “No, if anything, my parents will corner me one day and finally make me marry that girl from the Herathinos family. We’ll hate each other for eternity. Some soulmate she’ll be.”

“He’s out there for you, Dorian,” Felix insisted.

“‘He’?” Dorian echoed. “That’s not how things work between men, Felix. No man would speak those words to me.”

Felix gazed at him with sad appraisal. “What do the words say? You never told me.”

Dorian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, my friend. Leave it be.”

That was the last time Dorian had seen Felix for a long time. Before one indiscretion with a nobleman’s son found Dorian sequestered away in his own home, forbidden to leave for months. Before the blood ritual that almost happened.

***

The Herald of Andraste, Leader of the Inquisition, Slayer of Demons, Thorn in the Side of Corypheus, Paragon of the Maker’s Will, and so on, and so forth… was a Dalish elf.

And they were flirting.

Dorian didn’t know what was more preposterous: that a Dalish elf - who rather didn’t like the Chantry or Andraste or the Maker at all - had become a symbol for Andrastianism; or that that same elf actually seemed to like Dorian. In fact, Aeric was rather bluntly honest with his interest, wasting no words in complimenting Dorian’s charm and intellect, his eyes and mustache. Dorian had flirted in the past, of course, but mainly with women. It was what was expected of him in Tevinter, and a harmless boost to his self-esteem. With men, it had almost always been veiled, lingering looks, excuses made to be alone, then meaningless fucking without attachment or connection beyond the physical.

This, with Aeric, was different. Long conversations about a mutual passion for learning, thoughtful gestures and gifts with meaning, not quite accidental brushes of fingertips upon the bare skin of an arm. Dorian had been doing a despicable amount of blushing these days.

And after the confrontation with his father, after Aeric defended him against Mother Giselle, after their first impulsive kiss in the library, Dorian found himself looking at the words on his arm again. Really looking, for the first time in years.

_I love you, ma'nehn. I’m sorry._

People said that the tragedy of this magic was that you never knew who your soulmate truly was until you were about to lose them.

And for the first time, Dorian could attach his words to a person. He didn’t know if the words belonged to Aeric, but he began to hope.

But Dorian knew. Hope was a dangerous thing.

***

“I’m not leaving empty-handed. It’s a matter of pride.”

Dorian had never been so overjoyed to be turned down.

As he and Aeric kissed, Dorian felt a giddy lightheadedness come over him. Whatever happened between them, it was because Aeric wanted him - not just for pleasure or fun, but for himself as a whole person. That knowledge alone boggled the mind. Dorian had always thought a relationship like this to be beyond his reach.

When they parted, Dorian couldn’t help the wide grin across his face. “So, tell me, what happens now? I’ve never exactly been 'wooed’ before.”

Aeric chuckled, a rich sound Dorian was becoming increasingly fond of. “Come back tomorrow evening. We’ll have dinner together.”

“Dinner, hm?” Maker’s breath, Dorian could not stop himself from smiling. “Traditionalist, I see.”

“I do enjoy the classics,” Aeric said with a shrug.

“That you do.” Dorian gave a nod and began to draw away, his hands staying on Aeric’s for as long as possible. “Well, I’ll see you then.”

“I look forward to it,  _ma'nehn_.”

It took a few seconds to register. When he finally realized what Aeric had said, Dorian froze in his tracks, unable to take another step forward. A chill settled on his skin that had nothing to do with the mountain breeze flitting through the window.

“Dorian? Is something wrong?”

“What did you say?” Dorian asked in a choked voice.

Footsteps behind him. Aeric came around him and peered into his face. “I only asked what was wrong.”

Dorian shook his head. “Before that,” he murmured. “There was a word I didn’t understand.”

“Oh,” Aeric said, his cheeks and the tips of his ears turning pink. “ _Ma'nehn_. It’s elvhen.”

Elvish. Dorian had wondered years ago if that was what it was, but there was no way to confirm it for sure.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing,” Dorian said, blinking to refocus himself. He forced the smile back on his face. “Perhaps we’ll speak on it later. But I was just leaving, and accepting your gracious invitation.” He gave a little bow before resuming his walk to the stairs. “Good night, Aeric.”

“Good night, Dorian,” Aeric replied, still looking puzzled as Dorian descended the stairs.

As Dorian went down the long flights of steps to the great hall, he clutched his left arm to his chest without realizing it. It had to be him. Who else could it be? What would be the chances of finding another elf who called him that one word in elvish? Was it a common endearment? What did it even mean? Dorian’s head was swimming, and it was difficult to keep himself from tumbling down the stairs. Maker, it was enough to enter into an actual relationship with the other man, but to discover that they were perhaps  _meant_  for each other?

Only months ago, Dorian scoffed at the idea of a soulmate and all who believed in such a thing. Now, he desperately wanted it all to be true. That Aeric could be his soulmate was more than he could have asked for.

Felix had been right. Dorian  _was_  a starry-eyed romantic.

***

Before dinner with Aeric the following evening, Dorian bound his forearm in a bandage underneath the sleeve-like arm covering he usually wore, not wanting Aeric to see the words. It wasn’t that he wanted to hide the knowledge from Aeric, but everything was only just starting between them. Could you scare off your soulmate? Dorian didn’t want to find out.

It was a good thing he had hidden the words, as Aeric apparently didn’t want to wait  _that_  long before having sex for the first time. Dorian had hoped that was the case.

“So the words don’t distract us,” Dorian explained when Aeric asked about the bandage.

Aeric nodded. “I’ll do mine as well,” he said and grabbed a clean handkerchief from a drawer, wrapping it neatly around his forearm. As soon as it was tied, Aeric pulled Dorian by the arm and kissed him eagerly before they both toppled into bed together.

A few weeks later found them wandering the Emerald Graves with Blackwall and Cole. A Red Templar Shadow appeared out from nowhere behind Dorian, raising his twin blades to strike. Aeric materialized between them, blocking the blades with his bow.

Quiet as the struggle ended. Blood on the ground. Aeric lay on the forest floor beneath Dorian’s hands that glowed with healing magic, to mend the slice across Aeric’s middle.

“What were you thinking, letting yourself get stabbed like that?” Dorian scolded him. He sent Blackwall to get help from camp, and asked Cole to stay with him to help. “You are a damned fool,” he told Aeric.

“Maybe,” Aeric replied in a tight voice. “But you act like I’m more important than you.”

Dorian barked out a laugh. “Of course you are. Wave of your sparkly hand, and poof! Rifts close, demons fall, earth trembles.” He sent tendrils of healing magic into the wound. Closer to closed now. “Me? A better-looking man, surely. But I’m not important in the grand scheme of things.”

“You’re important to me,  _ma'nehn_.” Aeric reached out and laid a hand on Dorian’s knee. He smiled. “I love you.”

The Fade slipped out of Dorian’s fingers, the spirit magic dissolving into the air. He stared down at Aeric. “Wait, no…” His words. They started with those three. A tendril of panic coiled around his spine. “Don't… don’t say that.”  _No, no, no…_

“I love-”

“No!” Dorian yelled, startling Aeric and Cole both. Not his words, not now. “Stop talking! You’re not allowed to say another word, do you hear me?”

Aeric stared up at him, hurt and confusion warring on his face. Though he looked like he wanted to protest, he only nodded instead.

Hands shaking, Dorian returned his attention to the wound on Aeric’s stomach, trying to push past the panic still clawing at him. He had never healed a wound this large before. He had to try.

“Waiting to hear words over a lifetime,” Cole muttered. “From anyone. Those three. Just to know it’s possible. But not from him.” The spirit held out a potion for Aeric to drink.

Aeric gulped down the contents of the small glass bottle. “What is it, Cole?”

“From anyone else, a beginning,” Cole replied. “From him, the end.”

Dorian grunted irritably. “You be quiet, too.”

The green glow of healing magic lit the shadows cast upon the forest floor. The Emerald Graves were silent, as quiet as their name.

***

“Do you want to tell me what happened back there?”

Aeric lay resting in the bedrolls Dorian shared with him. The wound on the elf’s middle had healed, if clumsily, leaving a long, pale scar. Dorian didn’t answer at first, freezing in the act of washing his face.

“I didn’t expect anything in return,” Aeric continued softly. “If you don’t feel the same way, or don’t know yet, that’s fine. But…” He frowned, and Dorian hated to see the hurt behind his eyes. “I hardly expected that you wouldn’t want me to say it at all. You sounded… afraid.”

Dorian wiped at his face with a towel before slipping under the blankets. He curled against the elf, holding him tightly, one hand splayed over the new scar. “It's… not the sentiment I fear,” Dorian murmured. “Maker knows how much hearing it from you means to me.” He paused and sighed. “The words themselves are the problem.”

Aeric turned his head to look at Dorian with his brow furrowed.

After a moment’s hesitation, Dorian lifted his left arm and began to unwrap the bandage.

_I love you, ma'nehn. I’m sorry._

Aeric ran his fingertips over the words, his eyes wide and bright. He stared at them for a long time, a grin spreading across his awestruck face. “I’m yours,” he breathed.

Despite the anxiety coiling in his stomach, Dorian couldn’t help but smile. “It would appear so, unless that endearment of yours is commonplace amongst your people?”

Aeric shook his head. “I haven’t heard it used this way before. The phrase means-”

“No, don’t tell me,” Dorian interrupted. “I’ve wondered about the word for nearly two decades. Seems rather anti-climactic merely to tell me now.”

With a smile, Aeric returned his attention back to the words still under his fingertips. “I like knowing that it’s you, before the time comes. I had hoped it was.” The smile began to fall from his face. “Is that why you didn’t want me to say this?” He pointed at the first three words.  _I love you_. “Because you thought it might be the end?”

Dorian nodded, a lump forming in his throat at the thought. “If you go on saying it, I fear I may have a heart attack each time. A poor reaction to such a fine sentiment, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I can’t  _not_  say it,” Aeric protested with a frown. Chewing on his lower lip - in a way Dorian found entirely too distracting - Aeric paused in thought. After a moment, his eyes brightened. “ _Ma'arlath_.”

“What’s that now?”

“It means the same thing,” Aeric explained, pointing to the first three words again. “In elvhen.  _Ma'arlath_ , Dorian.”

Someone loved him.  _Aeric_  loved him. Dorian kissed him, lingering for a moment, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “It’s perfect,” he murmured. “Never say it in Common again, you understand? I never want to hear it.” He pointed to the last two words _. I’m sorry_.“And these?”

“ _Ir abelas_.”

Dorian gave a short nod. “Yes, say that instead as well. Just to be certain.” He ran a hand through Aeric’s hair as he gazed into his deep blue eyes. “Promise me you won’t say any of these words again. Please.”

“What about this one?” Aeric pointed.  _Ma'nehn_.

“That one you can use,” Dorian replied with a smile. “I quite like that one.”

Aeric’s face turned serious, and he hesitated.

“What’s the matter? You’re not promising,  _amatus_.”

Without a word, Aeric lifted his own arm, unwrapping the bandage that he, too, had taken to wearing there. He held his forearm out for Dorian to see.

_You damned idiot! You promised!_

Dorian could feel a clenching in his heart, but he gave a soft chuckle regardless. “ _Kaffas_ , that sounds like something I’d say.”

“I thought so, too.” Aeric looked up at Dorian, their eyes locking. “If I make this promise, I will have to break it one day.”

“Must you?”

“Everybody dies, Dorian,” the elf said, and Dorian was momentarily reminded of Felix. “I can only put it off for so long.”

Dorian’s arms tightened around him. “Promise me anyway.”

Aeric kissed him again. “I promise,  _ma'nehn_ ,” he whispered. “ _Ma'arlath._ ”

***

For a long time, Dorian expected it all to fall away. For their relationship to fall apart, despite the words’ declaration that they were meant for each other. When months passed, however, and they were still together and alive and - Dorian dared to admit - happy, he began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t something to this spell after all. Dorian still wore the sleeve. He had hidden the words for so long that revealing them to anyone other than Aeric felt obscene, laying bare something too intimate to be shared with anyone but his lover.

Yet he stopped wearing the bandage underneath. The words were no longer a mockery of his pain, a cosmic joke against the perpetually lonely. It was now the culmination of a lifetime of longing, the fulfillment of a promise two decades in the making. Late in the night, while Aeric was asleep beside him, Dorian would gaze at the letters in the moonlight. In the daytime he might scoff at its meaning, but when darkness and quiet fell, and the whole world seemed asleep but for him, he thanked whatever force had led him to the elf he held fast in his arms.

There was fear, of course. Dorian had never had someone to lose before, and when the two of them placed themselves at the height of danger every day, he couldn’t help but feel afraid that the day would come when he would hear those words. That the day would come when Aeric would finally break his promise. Yet when Aeric came near death, when Dorian was certain they would never see each other again, the words never came.

“ _Ma'arlath,_  Dorian,” Aeric sighed over and over as they clutched at each other atop the flagstones at Adamant. After the elf had foolishly remained behind to save the Champion and Warden Alistair. After Dorian had dived into the Fade to retrieve him. “ _Ma'arlath, ma'arlath_ … I was stupid,  _ir abelas…_ ”

“Shut up, you bloody fool,” Dorian whispered into his hair. “You’re all right now. We’re all right.” His heart pounded as he realized just how deeply his feelings for this man ran within him. Terrifying and exhilarating all at once, even the knowledge that perhaps their meeting had been preordained could not dull the shock of actually feeling how completely his happiness was dependent upon this one person.

Happiness. A common theme between them, with Aeric’s smiles bigger and more frequent. Dorian’s own lips curled upward more often than not, no longer a mask to hide behind, but a genuine expression of his emotions. When the day came that Dorian found his endearment in the elvish books before him - _nehn_  - its meaning leapt out at him. Because of course it meant 'joy’, of course. If they really were soulmates, if they were truly meant for each other, then they were joy personified for one another, a reciprocation of unending devotion. _Ma'nehn_.  _My joy_.

And when they stood before the Well of Sorrows, and Dorian was almost certain that Aeric would drown himself in its waters to regain the history of his people held within, the elf gazed at Dorian such deliberation that the mage felt uncomfortable. At Dorian’s pleas for Aeric to stay away from the waters, Aeric nodded, stepping back to let Morrigan drink.

They found themselves in Skyhold only minutes later, and as they both stood on the balcony of their quarters, Dorian reached out for Aeric’s hand. “I’m sorry,” Dorian told him. “And thank you. I know how much you wanted to drink from the Well, and what it must have taken for you to give up its knowledge to a human.”

Aeric shook his head, taking their linked hands and bringing them up to his lips to kiss Dorian’s knuckles. “It doesn’t matter.  _Ma'arlath_ ,  _ma'nehn_. I have what I need.”

Dorian closed the space between them in an instant, kissing with all the feeling he never had the words to express. The painful bliss of being loved so fully. Of finally, finally coming first in someone’s life. He wanted to repay it.  _Oh, Maker,_ he called out in a rare, silent prayer.  _Let me be worthy. I want to make him happy._

***

That Aeric did not say the words before fighting Corypheus was a comfort. It felt like an insurance, that because Dorian hadn’t heard the words, then this couldn’t possibly be the day his  _amatus_  died. He watched as Aeric threw himself headfirst into the battle, fury and purpose in his every motion. Dorian followed, as he would always follow, the determination to protect this man at his side fueling his every spell more than lyrium or mana ever could. Aeric emerged from the fray victorious, as Dorian knew he would. For the first time in a long while, Dorian knew what it was to have faith in someone and have that faith realized.

Months passed, however, and in the calm after the virtual storm of Corypheus and the Breach, Dorian felt himself drawn home. The work to be done in the South was important, but with the immediate threat gone, it was time to deal with the root cause of the Venatori’s existence. Tevinter, and all its many problems.

Dorian had to go back, even if his feelings for Aeric made it difficult to leave. Happiness could be contained within a single person, Dorian knew now. But that happiness wasn’t everything.

The words were insurance again, when they parted some six months later. Aeric did not speak of his love in the Common Tongue, and Dorian did not call him an idiot. They would see each other again. The words - or the lack of them - made certain of it.

But Tevinter held its own dangers. Choice insults to enrage a young magister. An assassin dispatched, not for Dorian. For Aeric, for Aeric. All because of him.

The words were no comfort then. As he waited for a letter from Aeric or Josephine or Cullen or  _anyone_  about whether the assassin had succeeded, Dorian paced the space in front of the parlor’s balcony doors, his sleeve removed. He stared at the words, willing the myth around them to be true. _They’re his words_ , Dorian told himself as he crossed the room once, twice more.  _They are his last words to me. And if he hasn’t said them, he can’t be dead._

When the letter arrived, his fear was no less at seeing it wasn’t Aeric who had written to him. His relief no less to see that Aeric wasn’t dead. And when Dorian confronted the magister who sent the assassin, his fury remained unabated until the moment he stood over the man’s dead body.

No matter what assurances the words seemed to give, no one and nothing would threaten his  _amatus_  and live.

***

“I… I love you, Aeric.”

Dorian said the words, only once, during a surprise visit to Skyhold. Aeric had cried, then. Maker, how much those words must have meant to him. Even still, the knowledge that they would be apart again in a few short weeks stilled Dorian’s tongue from saying it again. It was a struggle to let the words come loose, and he hated himself each time he choked on them. If Aeric was forbidden to say those three words, then surely he deserved to hear them.

 _There will always be time later_ , Dorian told himself as he sailed off to Tevinter again.  _I’ll tell him again, and more often, next time I see him._

Dorian never considered their time might be short.

In the South again, sent for the Exalted Council. The trip quickly dissolved into another race to save the world from destruction. Dorian should have known something was wrong from the way the Mark flared without warning, its energy ripping through enemies like so much paper. So when Leliana told them that the Mark was consuming Aeric, Dorian found it difficult to keep himself from shaking. Two years apart, only for it all to end now? He would never have left, if he had known they would have so little time left.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Dorian asked Aeric brokenly. “I could've… I don’t know. Something.”

To anyone else, Aeric’s expression might have appeared unchanged. But Dorian could see the tightness at the corners of Aeric’s eyes, the downturn of his brow. Aeric was afraid. “Whatever happens, I wouldn’t trade the years we’ve shared for anything,” he said, and gazed at Dorian with no less determination in his face. “ _Ma'arlath_.”

Still keeping his promise, then. “I knew you would break my heart, you bloody bastard,” Dorian accused, struggling to keep the tears that threatened behind his eyes at bay.

Aeric set his shoulders and turned then, leading them onwards into battle. And Dorian waited. Every time the Mark flared, he expected Aeric to say it _. I love you, ma'nehn. I’m sorry._ The Anchor was overloading with energy, nearly exploding any time Aeric used it. He had no choice but to use it, lest it tear them all apart as well. In the back of Dorian’s mind, as he threw spells as fast as he drew breath, he tried to prepare himself.  _Any moment now,_  he thought, flames and lightning pouring from his staff.  _Any moment now._

As the fighting died down, Aeric turned toward one of the mirrors and went ahead. Dorian put up his hand to push through, to follow. His hand met darkened glass. “No…” Dorian breathed. “No, not now… Not now!” He pounded his fist on the mirror, willing it to open. “How do you work this blasted thing?” he asked, not turning to look at Cassandra and Cole behind him. “I have to be with him! Someone make it open!”

Cole came up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Solas will not hurt him. He doesn’t want to harm anyone.”

Dorian whirled around to face the former spirit. “Yes, but can he save Aeric?”

“I… I don’t know,” answered Cole, staring down at his hands.

It was then that Dorian remembered the sending crystal. His hands fumbled at the amulet hanging from a chain around his neck. He was just about to activate it when he hesitated. What words would Aeric say through the crystal? If Dorian put off hearing the words for as long as possible, could he give Aeric more time? How much of the prophecy in the words’ spell was self-fulfilling?

 _Just let him live_ , Dorian cried out inwardly, falling to his knees on the stones around the mirror.  _I never have to hear him speak again, so long as I know he’s alive…_

A blue glow from the mirror. Dorian scrambled to his feet, pushing through, feeling himself pulled forward across miles in an instant. He yelped as he emerged beside a giant stone qunari. His heart racing, it wasn’t long before he spotted Aeric, standing at the edge of ruined landing ahead.

“Stay back!” Aeric shouted, not to Dorian. His entire arm was aflame in bright emerald light. A figure approached him cautiously, with deliberate movement. “You’ll not have it!”

Dorian ran toward the nearby stairs, taking them two at a time. Solas, in resplendent armor, stood before Aeric, reaching out to him.

“It will kill you, my friend,” Solas was saying as Dorian and the others reached the top of the landing. “You do not have much time.”

Aeric stepped closer to the edge of the landing.

“ _Amatus!_ ” Dorian cried. “What’re you doing?”

Aeric glanced his way, his eyes wide but fierce, his face contorted in pain. Directing his attention back to Solas, Aeric stepped still closer to the edge. “You claim to care,” he spat, “but you would use the Anchor to tear the world apart! You would kill everyone, just to bring about a world only  _you_  deem worthy!” With a cry of agony, he shot energy from the Mark into the empty air behind him, opening a large rift.

Dorian lurched forward, his heart leaping from his chest. “Aeric, no! What are you doing?”

“Stop!” Solas yelled at the same time, his eyes glowing with ice blue light. Dorian and the others froze, unable to move. “Inquisitor,” Solas said, his tone almost threatening. “Give me the Anchor, before it consumes you.”

“Tear down the Veil some other way, Solas,” Aeric snarled. “Because you’ll have to come to the Fade to claim it.” He took a step backward. Tears spilled from his eyes. “ _Ma'arlath, ma'nehn_ ,” he said in a choked voice. “ _Ir abelas._ ”

Dorian watched in horror as Aeric turned. “No, you damned bastard! You can’t do this!  _Amatus!_ ”

Aeric launched himself from the landing into the rift, a tendril of its magic pulling the portal closed behind him.

Air left Dorian’s lungs in a rush as an anguished cry ripped through him. He would have collapsed where he stood, if not for the spell that held him paralyzed.

Before him, Solas hung his head, his shoulders slumping just slightly. “He… needn’t have done that,” he said softly. “I did not want anyone to die needlessly.”

All the words Dorian would have said had left him _. Speechless, I see,_  Aeric’s voice echoed within him.There was time for rage later. For now, the pain of losing Aeric was all-consuming.

“Traitor,” Cassandra spat, her voice dripping with disgust. “I don’t know what your game is, but you are culpable for the Inquisitor’s death.”

Solas looked up at Cassandra with sadness in his eyes. “I am culpable for a great many things, Seeker.” Without another word, he turned toward the giant mirror at the end of the landing and disappeared within its depths.

As soon as he was gone, the spell lifted from the three of them. Dorian fell to his hands and knees onto the ruined cobblestones, not caring to hide the tears running down his face. Cole was at his side at once, but Dorian could barely register his presence. All he could feel was loss.

With a snarl, he tore the sleeve from his left arm, finding the black script flowing across his skin.  _I love you, ma'nehn. I’m sorry._  He stared down at the unchanged letters, at the way they mocked what he had just seen with his own eyes.

“What does it mean?” Dorian shouted, holding his arm out to Cassandra and Cole. Both of them looked at him with mournful expressions, unable to answer. “What does it mean? He didn’t say them! He kept his promise! And I didn’t say his! What does it mean?”

Cassandra only shook her head, and for once, Cole had no words of comfort to give.

With a sob, Dorian bent over his arm, clutching it to his chest, shutting out the world around him.

***

Dorian returned to Tevinter, as planned. Yet while he worked toward reform in his homeland, books about the Veil and the Fade filled his study. Cassandra took up the cause to find Solas, to stop whatever he had planned, and Dorian instructed her to find him as soon as she had a lead. He would see Solas burn for what Aeric was forced to do. He would keep his own oath. No one would threaten his  _amatus_  and live.

Dorian still wore the sending crystal, though it had never been used. Whenever he tried to activate it, the magic died almost as soon as it began. There was nowhere for his voice to go.

And in the stillness of every night, Dorian would lie awake, gazing at the words still etched on his arm. The myth of the words had to be true. These were Aeric’s last words to him. He had to hope that, someday, they would see each other again.

But Dorian knew all too well. Hope was a dangerous thing.


End file.
